What do you get when you mix a wacky engineer who specialized in composites with a guy who used to work in hospitalities but just happens to lay down killer paint work? You get Ruckus Components! I recently had the opportunity to spend the afternoon with Shawn (left) and Graham (right) in their Ruckus Components lab. They have created a shop environment that is a somewhat of a mixed bag. You will find a bit of mad science, wacky engineering, and custom fabrication / paint, along with carbon fiber repair work.
The boys at Ruckus primarily focus on carbon fiber repair. Most will find that the cost of repair is a lot less than a crash replacement frame. So, if you happen to leave the bike on the roof of your car while entering your garage you can take it over to Ruckus and see what they can do for you. They will inspect any carbon parts (frames, forks, wheels) and let you know if the repair is possible and the general cost ahead of time. Typical turn around time is about two weeks.
For the rest of the images, including a customized Enve Road 1.0 fork, click through.
It is not uncommon to find some nice one off custom work laying around the shop. While there, I spotted this fork. It happens to be an Enve Road 1.o that has been modified with fender eyelets and cable routing for a generator hub. The fork is not quite finished yet. Graham finished spraying the clear coat, but it still needs a good standing and polishing. When done, the entire thing will look stock.
Why go with wood planks on your rack when you can have custom carbon fiber with engraving?
What do you do with a broken Zipp Vuma crankset? You give it to Shawn who then cuts it apart, attaches it to a single ring, and re-wraps the carbon. Next it will get cleaned up and polished to become one of the lightest single ring cyclocross cranksets in existence. Sure there are no chain ring bolts, but honestly, when you have the shop they do you just cut it off and mold on a new one when needed.
What do you do when you get bored at work? Graham made a carbon fiber cowboy hat!
The guys have designed and built chainring guards as well as a pile of fenders. Unlike others, the fenders are curved, not flat. The mounting hardware for the fenders are cut on a water jet and the struts are carbon rods. It makes for a very stiff full coverage fender for your road bike. They are not in full production yet however.
When doing repair work, often the frame decals need to be matched and replaced. They keep around a pile of different colored vinyl, as well as a sample book so they can match just about any decal. The decals are printed, cut by hand, and applied in house. Custom decals are no problem either. You can have a phrase added, logos applied, or even custom graphics for your custom steed. While not pictured, they can also do an amazing job matching the factory paint so that repair work blends right in.
When you are in the carbon fiber repair game, you need a pretty diverse stock pile of different types of raw carbon. Around the shelves of the Ruckus lab you will find different carbon fiber weaves, different modulus, as well as kevlar (the colorful ones), and even baslat fiber (not pictured).
Don’t let that nice race bike sit in the shed any longer just because the chain stay is broken or the top tube is damaged. Get it down to Ruckus, then get it back on the road again. And, while Ruckus is a local (for me at least) Portland company, you can ship your frame to them for inspection and repair work.
